1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a lace-adjusting device. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to an adjusting device for tightening or loosening a lace.
2. Description of Related Art
Recently, for preventing a foot from injury caused by sliding in a shoe while walking or sporting, it is particularly focused on adjusting the tightness between the foot and the shoe. In the past, common methods by using such as a shoelace, an elastic ribbon, a zipper or a Velcro tape are used to achieve this purpose. However, the Velcro tape is easily contaminated with dusts and scraps, and is easily fatigued after being used several times, thus having poor practicality; the zipper has a small adjusting range and poor fixity; and the elastic ribbon easily becomes rigid after a long time use. Thus, in the market, a shoelace-type shoe is most popular.
However, for children who cannot tie a shoelace, the shoelace is often loosened due to poor tightening; and for elders with decayed physical strength, it often bothers them to crouch down to tie a shoelace. More importantly, in some vigorous sport occasions such as basketball, tennis, rock climbing and skateboarding, etc., once the shoelace is loosened or the remaining shoelace is too long, a foot is easily trip on the shoelace when being moving, or the shoelace is easily caught by a foreign matter, thus causing dangers, which cause great threats to professional athletes.
In the market, there is a fastener structure with a function of tightening or loosening a shoelace (see Taiwan Patent Serial No. 1374016). The fastener structure is popular because it can be applied on various products requiring to tighten a lace on a wearable product. Such conventional fastener structure utilizes a ring-type stopping member and an elastic member (i.e. elastic plate) to generate a uniform vertical jamming force.
By the uniform vertical jamming force, a rotation motion of a cap and a vertical motion can drive a wire-plate to tighten or loosen the shoelace. However, in such fastener structure, the number of the components is large and the structure is very complicated. Moreover, the cost of the elastic member is high, and the elastic member is easily elastically fatigued after being used repeatedly. Furthermore, damages easily occur between the elastic member and the other components that are resisted by the elastic member. Thus, the operation fault and the failure rate will increase.
Another shoelace tightener is also disclosed in Japan Patent Application no. JP1995-000208. In such shoelace tightener, an actuation member is used to collaborate with a spring for producing a uniform vertical jamming force, and the actuation member is used to control the jamming or releasing. By this way, a vertical motion of the actuation member can control a wire-plate to tighten or loosen a shoelace. However, the number of the components is still large and the structure of the shoelace tightener is still very complicated. Similarly, the spring is easily elastically fatigued and damaged after being used repeatedly and thus the operation fault and the failure rate will increase.